GCCs, engg services cos sustain hiring in IT

Hiring by the GCCs for specific talent is being done. Though the numbers are not comparable to Indian IT firms, but it remains a bright spot - Supaul Chanda, Global Business Head, Otomeyt, tells Bizz Buzz

Emerging Hub For GCCs

• Several mid-level global firms setting up technology captives in India
• Revenue growth of engg firms better than IT services cos in Q3
• India home to 1,523 GCCs in FY23
• GCCs jointly employ 2mn staffers in India
• This number is likely to touch 1,900 by 2025

Bengaluru: Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and engineering services companies are the only growth spots in the technology hiring landscape in the recent quarters as all other major hirers including domestic IT firms continue to shed employee count.

According to HR experts, despite hiring slowdown, technology captives and engineering services remain the only bright spots in the current subdued environment. They said entry of mid-level global enterprises into India and sound performance of engineering services firms are the reasons behind this trend.

“Hiring by the GCCs for specific talent is being done. Though the numbers are not comparable to Indian IT firms, but it remains a bright spot,” Supaul Chanda, Global Business Head of talent engineering firm- Otomeyt told Bizz Buzz.

According to consultants in the IT industry, increasingly many mid-level firms across the world are looking at India for setting up technology captives, which are known as GCCs in industry parlance. This trend is different from earlier ones when only big corporate houses have come to India in their search for technology talent.

“With increasing ease of setting up GCCs in India, several mid-level corporate houses are coming to India. This addition to overall GCC space is driving the demand for technology talent,” said a consultancy.

A report by industry body Nasscom shows that the country is home to 1,523 GCCs by the end of FY23. This number is likely to touch 1,900 by 2025. As per an EY study, these GCCs jointly employ around two million staffers in the country.

Apart from Bengaluru and Hyderabad, other tier-I Indian cities, suchw as Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Pune have also seen setting up of many GCCs in recent years.

In addition to GCCs, hiring by engineering services companies is going on as compared to their IT services peers. Sound performance in recent quarters is seen as the reason behind such hiring momentum. In the third quarter ended December, all engineering services companies and the engineering wing of big IT firms have shown sequential rise in performance.

For instance, data by consultancy firm EIIR Trend showed that revenue of Tata Elxsirose 3 per cent sequentially in dollar term, while revenue of KPIT increased 2.7 per cent in December quarter on sequential basis.

Persistent Systems’ revenue increased 3 per cent in dollar term over the previous quarter, while it rose 0.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter for L&T Technology Services.

Engineering services revenue for HCL Tech increased 8.5 per cent in sequential term during the December quarter.

Most engineering services companies reported better growth in revenue and profits during the third quarter as compared to IT services companies, prompting them to continue hiring.